European Supply Chain Analyst Review

I absolutely loved my placement year! I have learned so much, not only about my chosen university course (computer science) but also about the overall business structure, what my work is doing on a larger scale, and why we have certain key metrics.

I feel like I have provided a lot of benefit to my colleagues in the office, as well as those overseas. There were a few people I didn't get along with at all, but thankfully no-one important to my job. However, overall I made a lot of friends, as well as future business connections. There were often trips out to the pub after finishing a project, or celebrating an occasion. To answer the question, I felt very valued by my colleagues.

I had a one-to-one meeting every week with my supervisor, in which we discussed what we were working on, what needs to be done, and how I'm feeling here. Working in a business as large as General Motors, I understand that people a few levels above me in the office simply don't have a lot of time for me but we did have the occasional catch-up. Thankfully, I didn't need too much guidance during my time here, any problems I've had this year have been purely personal so they have naturally stayed away from the workplace.

Every morning I would be occupied with monitoring the tasks I have scheduled the night before and tweaking things. The afternoons were mostly spent working on projects. It was sometimes annoying having other people in the office ask me to do things when I'm busy doing something else, but over the year I've learned to deal with these situations, and being able to prioritise tasks or say "no" when I'm asked to do someone's job for them.

I was given a great amount of responsibility during my placement. I am trusted with providing data/information to upper management which in turn gets used for global metrics (the most correct and official readings, which countries measure by).

Working in a professional environment for a year will undoubtedly prepare me better for university next year, and my career immediately afterwards. I think that the skills I have been using over the year have helped me more overall in an IT or business role, instead of an academically-focused computer science role. This is what I wanted, however. I feel much more well-rounded at a professional level.

The atmosphere was good, it was a challenging, fast paced environment, however the people were friendly, lots of fun conversations were exchanged and the volume acceptable, considering other offices I have visited can be eerily quiet, meaning someone new to the office may feel uncomfortable. The warehouse is not your typical office environment, and safety was always a top priority, but it was a down-to-earth, friendly and funny atmosphere.

We had an undergraduate organising the vast majority of the placement-oriented material, tasks, and even the candidate selection for next year. Can't be faulted on that front. The downside is the access requests for systems and other things on the computers, which did get in the way of the placement for the first few months.

I was offered to go on training courses, and my colleagues did, although my supervisor couldn't find any suitable courses for me to go on, and I was very busy at the office.

I would love to go back and work in the company, specifically the Supply Chain department, but unfortunately it's not likely that I will be offered a job doing something similar to what I'm doing now. No-one in my role has been offered a job before, however I'd love to be the first! It depends on how many employees my supervisor is allowed.

There were a lot of social events organised by the undergraduates, for the undergraduates, although I didn't attend many of them. Lots were organised for our 'handover period', the first two weeks of our placement, and I attended a few of those which was very fun. There are lots of outings with the colleagues after work, usually for a drink and maybe some food.

Housing is very cheap, but it's not a desirable location in the slightest. Where I chose to live, Dunstable, is a lot nicer than Luton, and the cost of living wasn't too bad. I would rather pay more to live somewhere a lot nicer, though. I would say the location was the biggest downside of my workplace, if it was situated in a nicer place I would be begging to come back!

The nightlife was fine, and I could go out if I wanted to, I just didn't that much. There are some nice locations near where I live, but where I worked was quite far away from everything (without driving).

There were so many opportunities! I could've done sport with people each week, gone out clubbing/partying each week, or gone on holiday with other undergraduates even! The number of activities can be overwhelming, however.